Research students on placement contribute to our practise- as well as taking part practically and creatively- with an incredible body of writing about their observations and subjective experience. This writing, in the form of blogs, essays, recordings, dissertations, interviews and feedback, informs the ongoing development of Ambient Jam. Their rigorous articulation of practise provides a vital advocacy of our work within the wider discourse of disability, ethics, society and culture.
Musician, Ryan Michael Evans recently returned home to Minnesota U.S.A after completing his MA in Applied Anthropology at Goldsmiths University in the summer of 2019. As part of his research he spent a year on placement in the Ambient Jam programme – an immersive embodied journey which then informed his final dissertation. Towards the end of his placement he also briefly joined the Ambient Jam team as a paid artist.
Keeping the connection with us across the Atlantic and missing the Ambient Jam improvisations, he shared with the team a quote by Ursula Le Guin:
‘Here’s a quote from one of my favourite of hers, the Lathe of Heaven:
“His dreams, like waves of the deep sea far from any shore, came and went, rose and fell, profound and harmless, breaking nowhere, changing nothing. They danced the dance among all the other waves in the sea of being.”
So much of Le Guins work captures something of the spirit of Ambient Jam – and I think this quote does it particularly well. “They danced the dance among all the other waves in the sea of being.” I love that.’
To read his blog about music and sound within Ambient Jam click here:http://entelechyarts.org/blog/ethnographic-look-ambient-jams-sound-world-ryan-evans/
Ambient Jam 